27 October 2010

President Obama briefly visited a late Tuesday meeting at the White House that was focused on legislative repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" during Congress' lame duck session, reports The Advocate. The meeting was held by House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina and Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett and brought together representatives of the Center for American Progress, the Human Rights Campaign, Log Cabin Republicans, Servicemembers United, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and the University of California Santa Barbara's Palm Center.

"'The President stopped by to directly convey to the participants his personal commitment on this issue,' said a White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity."

"To my knowledge, it hasn’t taken place yet. But, look, the only way we’re going to get something through the Senate is to change the vote count and to move past—look, you got to get—you’re going to have to get past a promised filibuster and—in moving to the bill. And certainly the only way we can move to that bill is to change some of those votes.

"'Obviously this meeting has gotten out. We are expecting the content of the conversation today to be off the record and to help us figure out how to move forward with the lame duck session. Also as previously mentioned, there can be no discussion of current court cases or legal strategy or Counsel’s Office will end the meeting. The focus is repeal and the lame duck session. This is also a non-partisan meeting where we want everyone’s help.'"

24 May 2010

The latest on today's efforts to reach a compromise on "Don't Ask, Don't
Tell" by the White House, the Defense Department, gay rights lobbyists and lawmakers ....

The White House has endorsed the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal compromise reported earlier, according to emails sent to Rod 2.0 and published reports. "Delayed implementation" retains the current policy until the Pentagon Working Group
study is completed. The President, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs will later sign-off on implementation.

Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orzsag:

"The Administration is of the view that the proposed amendment meets the
concerns raised by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. The proposed amendment will allow for completion of the Comprehensive
Review, enable the Department of Defense to assess the results of the
review, and ensure that the implementation of the repeal is consistent
with standards of military readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion,
recruiting and retention. ...The Administration therefore supports the
proposed amendment."

The statement responds to a request for input from Senators Joseph
Lieberman and Carl Levin and Rep. Patrick Murphy. The three pro-repeal lawmakers have been trying to build support for repeal
this year via the National Defense Authorization Act. A vote is expected Thursday.

The "compromise" would repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and return "open service" authority to the Pentagon. Non-discrimination language would not be included. As of yet, there is no deadline and the Associated Press speculates the process could take "several years" or more.

Pro-repeal advocates welcome the announcement. Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's Aubrey Sarvis says today's developments are a "dramatic breakthrough" that should ensure repeal will be attached to the NDAA.

21 May 2010

Several updates on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ...

· Speaker Nancy Pelosi vows to repeal DADT this year. "[Pelosi] wouldn’t say whether the House
will take the lead or predict when [it] would be repealed. But she made it clear ending
'Don’t ask, don’t tell' is at the top of
her agenda. 'I don’t have any doubt that ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’
will be a memory by the end of this year,' she said."

· Pelosi less confident about ENDA—stalled
since September. Pelosi recently said ENDA would have a "much better likelihood" of
passage if DADT repeal was successful first.

· Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA), sponsor of the DADT repeal bill, has an op-ed
in Politico. The Iraq War vet slams anti-repeal arguments as "weak and outdated."

· Servicemembers
United discovers 630 additional discharges under "Don't Ask, Don't
Tell" that have NOT been counted. The discharges were discovered in a Freedom of Information Request. Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United
and a former U.S. Army intelligence officer discharged under DADT, says the data confirms SU's "suspicions" the Pentagon's numbers are "incomplete and under-reported."

· Nicholson says the White House was "passive" on repeal.
"Our sense in leaving the meeting was that it was going to be a
difficult battle to get them to ...
[include] repeal language in the [Defense] Authorization bill...I
certainly left that meeting with the impression that they weren't going
to help us."

FWIW: The House and Senate will recess in August. The election is November. Will House members want to vote on ENDA only days before August townhall meetings and campaigns? And the Senate is expected to vote ... when?

"The annual fiscal year “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” discharge statistic
combines the total number of discharges reported by the Department of
Defense, which was 428, with the total number of discharges reported by
the Department of Homeland Security for the Coast Guard, which was 15.
This brings the official 17-year total, according to the Department of
Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, to 13,425 discharges
under 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.'"

DADT discharges are under-reported and "very likely higher":

"When pressed by Servicemembers United, the Office of the Secretary of
Defense’s Freedom of Information Office confirmed on three separate
occasions in late 2009 and early 2010 that the internal source of their
annual “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” discharge numbers is the Defense Manpower
Data Center, and that Defense Manpower Data Center statistics do not
include discharges from the Reserves or the National Guard. ... The Department of Defense in general – and the Defense Manpower Data
Center specifically – has consistently failed to disclose full
information and data related to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” discharges in
blatant violation of the Freedom of Information Act. In response to one
request for information by Servicemembers United in mid-2009, the
Department of Defense took more than twice the amount of time allowable
by law to produce less than one-tenth of one percent of the requested
data – data that was not classified and not protected by the Privacy
Act. Information requests from members of Congress, including House
Armed Services Committee members, have also been only partially filled."